If we perfected artificial intelligence to the point that machines could think and feel as we do, should they be able to vote, defend themselves, and apply for all the various licencing that is available to humans? (Hunting, fishing, piloting, driving, business, building permits, etc.)

Where do you draw the line where cybernetics are used? Do you retain your rights if you have an arm replaced with mechanical parts? What about all limbs? Neck down? Would you still retain your rights if your heart or brain was replaced? Is there a certain percentage where you cannot agree that you should maintain your rights and privaledges?

Here's a twist: would your answer change if robots somehow became capable of producing offspring?

When AI technology has progressed to the point we can no longer tell if it is human or not, then they should have the same rights as any humans. The production of offspring does not change this at all.

I believe these rights should be given as AI develops to being able to seem 'responsible', similar to how we don't give children all the rights of adults. By responsible I mean that the development of the networking is equivalent to a human at the point that we would allow that right.

Example: DrivingWe would not allow a AI to drive until their networking was as reliable as a human of driving age (16, 17, 18 - depends on where you live).

When you say, "No longer tell", you mean strictly by observing its behavior from a human-trensic sense of functionality as implied, as opposed to what it looks like or how the basic unit (cell/chip) of its life is categorized by prevailing science?

In a world full of people marrying their computers and people having sex with the environment. I would say it fails us even now. That we need not worry about the Artificial at this point because we lost our grasp of what is Intelligent.

_________________"To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you cannot criticize" - Voltaire

What I would anticipate with AI becoming indistinguishable from humans, is that we would begin to be replaced at work by these machines (we already are somewhat, a "perfect" imitation of a human would speed up the process), and this means that while in principle people might approach the question from the point of view of morality owed to the machine, more likely when faced with inevitable unemployment and the consequences of such (poverty, hunger, homelessness), the loss of power would motivate most people to vote against giving machines any more privilege.

_________________"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." - C.G. Jung